It's smart to fasten the cannon on the side of the mountain to reduce the costs. What kind of upper stage you think may be used at those G-forces?

Bull had three stages of solids on his original desgin. But he had a very low exit velocity. He also had designs that went solid solid liquid, so he obviously though material science even in 1965 was up to the job.

I can't view your picture for some reason the website cannot be found. About shockproof electronics: the electronics exist that can withstand 15,000G the ones used in guided tank projectiles.

idiom wrote:

ykoval wrote:

It's smart to fasten the cannon on the side of the mountain to reduce the costs. What kind of upper stage you think may be used at those G-forces?

Bull had three stages of solids on his original desgin. But he had a very low exit velocity. He also had designs that went solid solid liquid, so he obviously though material science even in 1965 was up to the job.

[img]h[/img]

I have a pretty neat design for my main stage. Its a liquid stage with about five pieces all of which are simple to manufacture. Only a small circularisation engine will be needed on top of that.

A successful implementation of my project should spin off a lot of advances in shockproofing consumer electronics.

The pipe gets enormous, the explosives quantities become quite big, it start to take a lot of energy to heat the hydrogen...

It would still be plausible at 10 tonnes... but what would you be launching everyday that would use the capacity? Also the expendable launcher gets quite expensive. Above a certain size I think reusable chemical rockets become simpler, cheaper and less dangerous.

The pipe gets enormous, the explosives quantities become quite big, it start to take a lot of energy to heat the hydrogen...

It would still be plausible at 10 tonnes... but what would you be launching everyday that would use the capacity? Also the expendable launcher gets quite expensive. Above a certain size I think reusable chemical rockets become simpler, cheaper and less dangerous.

Tunnel Into Space idea may use 20-30 feet in diameter and up to 1500-mile vacuum-filled-tunnel placed horizontally on Earth's surface. The spacecraft will be accelerated inside the tunnel and will punch through Earth's atmosphere on the way to space. To reduce the % loss of kinetic energy the spacecraft's mass may be very large up to 5,000 tons and its diameter only at 20 feet. The propulsion during acceleration may be magnetic in nature, but most likely, will be high explosives. The tunnel system is 'anti-rocket system'. What this means is that the tunnel system will not store the bulk of it propellants internally within accelerating spacecraft. Rockets accelerate their internal propellants in the wrong direction within the very accelerating rocket, and that's what makes rockets so inefficient, and exponentially huge compared to the payload they carry. In the tunnel system the propellants will be embedded in the tunnel, that is, all along its length. For this reason, the propellants will be stationery and will only implode on the spacecraft as it approaches them.

It should be noted that the high velocities required to attain LEO will not be sufficient with explosive methods used as in firearms or cannons. Explosives are not that fast. For this reason directional explosive methods need to be employed. If you take the spacecraft, enshrouded it inside a ridged cone, place it inside the tunnel with its cone-tip pointing in the opposite direction of travel, and allow the explosives to explode on that cone, then you've got a directional explosive method on your hands. Lets say we have a cone with radius-to-length ratio of 1:12 (i.e., 1 foot in diameter and 12 feet in length), when the propellants implode at the sped of 1 mile/second, perpendicularly to cone's axis, on the very cone then this cone and the craft inside it may attain speeds of 11-11.9 miles/second and still experience some of propellant's driving force. The reverse orientation of the cone makes it possible for the propellants to travel much slower than the cone.

The spacecraft may be built in the form of the very cone talked about. This will save materials and make the system tougher. Also, the cone (i.e., spacecraft) will have to turnaround, so it can enter atmosphere with its nose pointing in the direction of travel. For this reason, the end section of the tunnel will have to be spacious to allow the craft to turnaround. Also, sudden transition from vacuum to atmosphere will most like disintegrate any spacecraft system. For this reason, the very end section of the tunnel will have tunnel segments of progressively increasing pressures. The pressure differences will be separated by membranes and the craft will punch through these membranes on the way out.

The best way to space exploration is through the employment of common people. Common people are the people who operate earth-moving machinery, army personal to manage the application of explosives, construction crews to build the tunnel, submarine and ship construction crews to build the spacecraft, etc.. These are the people who can work and at the end of the day their progress can be measured. If we'll have only PhD-type people working, nothing will get done. Years of work and they will be still polishing the finish and many years more until the project becomes obsolete. If you look back in 1950s at the US and USSR when progress was made. Why can't we do it today with automation and computer aided drafting? The more we learn the more we become incompetent at work and only prove that we can learn well. If the project is high tech then it's a low production undertaking. If the project employs hard-working people with low pay expectations then the project may become domesticated in mass. One thing for sure is that rockets will never be responsible for colonization of the moon and space exploration in general because rocket carry their propellants internally.

The other detail is that the wider the tunnel and the sabot relative to the craft, the lower the tunnel pressure has to be. This may make it easier and cheaper to build a low pressure tunnel but at some point it will begin to use more material than it is worth.

Wider means more surface area, yes in this case, you need less pressure to have the same effect. The tunnel-into-space will be 30feet in diameter and 1500 miles long so the pressures will be much less than the atmospheric pressure at sea level even with the explosives detonated. In essence the tunnel will be made from concrete re-enforced with steel. Such materials used will spur rapid construction.

idiom wrote:

The other detail is that the wider the tunnel and the sabot relative to the craft, the lower the tunnel pressure has to be. This may make it easier and cheaper to build a low pressure tunnel but at some point it will begin to use more material than it is worth.